Collabiration with a Curator for My Gallentine’s Day Exhibition

As my Gallentine’s Day exhibition concept has developed, it has become clear that collaboration with a curator would be essential.

While my role focuses on creative direction (shaping the tone, visuals, atmosphere, and visitor experience) a curator brings the expertise needed to place the exhibition within a real gallery context. For an institution like the National Gallery, curators ensure that artistic, historical, and practical standards are upheld, and that any intervention works harmoniously with the permanent collection.

Finding the Right Curator

The National Gallery has a team of curators, each specialising in particular time periods, themes, or parts of the collection. Because my exhibition focuses on the women behind the paintings rather than the paintings themselves, I would look for a curator with one or more of these qualities:

1. Experience with social history or hidden narratives

2. Knowledge of the selected artworks

3. Interest in audience engagement and contemporary interpretation

4. Comfort with cross-disciplinary collaboration

How the Collaboration Would Work

The collaboration would be a balance of creative direction (my role) and curatorial expertise (their role).

I would be responsible for:

• Colour palette, visual identity, signage ideas
• The concept for the layout, i.e. the bean bag idea
• Ideas for sound or music i.e. what genre I want.
• The format of the A6 creative prompts
• Writing accessible, visitor-friendly interpretation for the paintings
• The emotional direction of the experience (reflective, empowering, social)